A dramatization of Christopher ReidÕs acclaimed narrative poem, starring Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson as a book editor and his former lover who meet for a nostalgic lunch 15 years after their break-up.
Pictured: Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson

The Song of Lunch: A "Masterpiece Contemporary" presentation. 9 p.m. Sun. PBS.

Former lovers meet for lunch in London after having lost touch for more than a decade. It doesn't end well.

Don't worry: I'm not giving anything away. You'll figure that out within the first minutes of "The Song of Lunch," a "Masterpiece Contemporary" presentation airing on PBS on Sunday.

The man, a sadly self-aggrandizing copy editor for a publishing house in London, leaves his office at midday to meet his former lover for lunch at what used to be their favorite Italian restaurant. Narrating his every step, the man is taken aback when he walks into the place. Instead of checked tablecloths and wax-encrusted Chianti-bottle candleholders, he finds an over-lit, crisply minimalist restaurant staffed with surly young waiters and waitresses. He, played by Alan Rickman, begins drinking even before the arrival of his former flame, played by Emma Thompson. The characters have no names.

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She now lives in Paris, married to a successful writer, and the fact that her companion, ogling waitresses as he downs glass after glass of Chianti, is still single is hardly a surprise.

Christopher Reid has adapted his own narrative poem, which, in turn, was inspired by a scene in "Ulysses." Oh, and the story takes place - wink, wink - in the Bloomsbury section of London. Our small amusement at the conceit of having the man narrate his thoughts and actions evaporates as soon as we peg him as insufferably pompous and ill suited to anyone's company, including that of a lover. But the narration continues, more or less, through the rest of the film. Only the fact that Thompson's character once loved him makes us consider the possibility that he wasn't always such a drunken jackass.

Thompson and Rickman are enjoyable enough in otherwise unbelievable roles. Yes, "Song of Lunch" is loaded with intentional irony, including Rickman's self-narration, and it is a clever but not especially engaging construct. That doesn't make it terribly interesting, but it's only an hour long.